CMCE Showcase: Learn to love the robot

The Centre for Management Consulting Excellence runs evening symposia we call Showcases whose purpose is sharing leading edge thinking of interest in management consulting.

The Centre’s 2019 report into Consulting Skills for 2030 identified robotics as being an area where consulting skills in selling and delivering work would need to change by 2030. Though robots are not new – we’re familiar with their presence in manufacturing – they are being increasingly used for the automation of business processes and this is going to have a considerable impact on the way that businesses are run. Well-informed consultants and businesspeople, even if they are not involved in introducing robots, therefore need to understand how they are being applied and the benefits and challenges involved.

Our 2020 programme therefore kicked off on March 3 with a symposium in which we discussed these and related issues.

• Our main speaker was Keith Stagner, CEO of T-Impact, a consultancy specialising in introducing robotic process automation (RPA) to organisations in both the public and private sector.
• Guy Kirkwood, Chief Evangelist for UiPath, one of the main providers of robots for RPA, then added his views. UiPath is one of the fastest-growing software companies in the world. Founded in Romania, from its first tiny venture round in 2015, its valuation has soared rapidly — to US$3 billion in 2018 and $7 billion in April 2019. Based in New York since 2017, the company has 3,000 employees, more than 5,000 clients, a developer community of 500,000 people, and annual revenues of more than $300 million.

As usual in our Showcases the presentations were followed by questions and group discussions, followed by a networking session over refreshments.

You can find Calvert Markham's account of the Showcase below.